Skill not invoked — Claude does a web search instead of calling Asta

Say 'use asta-skill' explicitly; academic tasks alone don't always route to MCP.

SKILL.md frontmatter wrong

Re-clone; the description is what triggers auto-activation.

asta-skill — 安装 & 实时演示

为什么要用

核心特性

Eight Semantic Scholar tools via MCP (get_paper, search_papers_by_relevance, get_citations, snippet_search, ...)
Intent→tool decision table so Claude picks the right function
Workflow patterns to avoid context-blow-up pitfalls (fields=citations warning baked in)
Batch operations for efficiency (get_paper_batch)
Works across Claude Code / Codex / Cursor / Windsurf / OpenClaw

实时演示

实际使用效果

asta-skill.replay ▶ 就绪

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安装

作者仓库 · Claude Skills 官方文档

使用场景

实战用法： asta-skill

Run a literature review on a specific research question

👤 Grad students and researchers ⏱ ~60 min intermediate

何时使用： You have a question and want to quickly map the relevant papers, not wade through Google Scholar.

步骤

Kick off the search

Use asta-skill — find highly-cited papers on retrieval-augmented generation from 2023-2024.✓ 已复制

→ Claude calls search_papers_by_relevance with good filters, not a generic query
Walk the citation graph

For the top 3, show me what cited them since.✓ 已复制

→ get_citations calls with appropriate filtering
Pull evidence snippets

Extract a 500-word passage from each paper explaining their main evaluation method.✓ 已复制

→ snippet_search returns targeted passages

结果： A mapped review with citation chains and evidence snippets — not just titles.

注意事项

Requesting fields=citations bulk-returns megabytes — The skill warns against this — trust the guidance and paginate instead

搭配使用： planning-with-files

Find a researcher's key papers and trace their influence

👤 Anyone profiling a potential collaborator or advisor ⏱ ~20 min beginner

何时使用： You want a fast, accurate view of someone's publication record.

步骤

Resolve the author

asta-skill — find the author 'Jane Smith' who works on graph neural networks.✓ 已复制

→ search_authors_by_name with disambiguation
Fetch papers

Get their papers sorted by citation count.✓ 已复制

→ get_author_papers call with sort
Impact snapshot

For the top 3, who's cited them most and is building on the work?✓ 已复制

→ Citation traversal showing ongoing lineage

结果： A one-page profile of a researcher's impact.

组合

与其他 MCP 搭配，撬动十倍杠杆

asta-skill + planning-with-files

Literature reviews span days — persist findings.md and next-reads.md

Use planning-with-files — findings.md for papers read, next-reads.md for the queue.✓ 已复制

asta-skill + filesystem

Save extracted snippets as notes in your Obsidian vault

For each paper, save the snippet to ~/obsidian/papers/<title>.md.✓ 已复制

工具

此 MCP 暴露的能力

工具	输入参数	何时调用	成本
search_papers_by_relevance	query + filters	Starting a literature search from a question	1 MCP call
get_paper / get_paper_batch	id or [ids]	Need full metadata on a known paper or list	1 MCP call (batch saves round-trips)
get_citations	paper id + filters + pagination	Walking citation graph forward	1 MCP call
snippet_search	paper id + query	Need evidence-level passages to ground claims	1 MCP call
search_authors_by_name / get_author_papers	name + disambiguators	Profiling a researcher	1 MCP call

成本与限制

运行它的成本

API 配额: Semantic Scholar API limits via Asta MCP — check Ai2's current terms
每次调用 Token 数: Varies; fields=citations can blow up context so avoid it
费用: Free — skills are local files; Asta MCP itself is free for research use
提示: Prefer batch calls and paginated citation fetches; snippet_search beats fetching full bodies.

安全

权限、密钥、影响范围

凭据存储： No credentials in the skill. Asta MCP setup may involve API keys.

数据出站： Queries go to Semantic Scholar via the Asta MCP server

故障排查

常见错误与修复

Wrong trigger keywords — context blows up on citation fetch

Don't request fields=citations — paginate with get_citations and filters.

替代方案

asta-skill 对比其他方案

替代方案	何时用它替代	权衡
arxiv MCP	You only need preprints, not cross-source citation graphs	Narrower source; no citation traversal
Raw Google Scholar	Quick one-off lookups without MCP setup	No structured tools, scraping-ish

asta-skill